Developing Empathy in your Child

Just like charity, empathy also begins at home. The ability to convey empathy can be seen in children as young as two years of age. When toddlers wipe the tears off a crying playmate, this is very much an act of empathy. In other instances children who witness playmates getting hurt may run to their mother seeking comfort as if they experienced the hurt themselves. You may also see little ones cry along with or pat or hug the other hurting child. Most of what we learn about empathy towards others is what we have received from adults as we were growing up or from our own experiences of negative circumstances and negative feelings. Children will often imitate the comfort that they receive from a parent when they try to empathize with another child. For example if mommy would hug the child or kiss its cheeks or hand over its favorite toy when it was hurting, this child in turn when it sees another toddler in pain or tears is very likely to try the same thing. Scientific studies point to some rather simple yet interesting findings with regard to how children’s experiences of empathy from their family members can influence them. Here is a gist of some of the most significant findings:

• Parents who point out to their children about how their bad behavior or words affected another person was found to be an effective means of promoting empathy. An emphasis on kindness and pro-social behavior also helped to make children more aware of others feelings and needs. When children have hurt others or have caused them distress, research supports the practice of parents or significant family members giving explanations as to why the behavior is harmful and suggestions for how to make amends. Teaching a child to apologize or to correct a mistake is an important milestone on the road to developing empathy. I often come across parents who undermine the hurt that their children cause others through their selfish demands, harsh words or actions. These parents turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the emotional wounds of others and fail to hold their children accountable for their actions. They convey the messages that the feelings of others are not to be accounted for as long as your needs are fulfilled

• It has also been found that mothers in particular who use less punishment and follow a more responsive and non authoritarian style of parenting tend to have children who are more empathetic. Parents on the other side of the spectrum of disciplining often make the mistake of punishing their child far more than required without proper reasoning. All they manage to do instill fear in the child without a proper understanding as to why he should be compassionate towards others or understand the needs of others

•  Parents encouraging school age children to discuss their feelings and problems have been seen as an excellent way to develop empathy in these children. Parents who don’t force their children to suppress their emotions or ask them to shut up when they are crying or trying to express a negative feeling are more likely to be able to empathize with what their child is experiencing. This in turn serves as a means to self awareness in these youngsters. Parents who are inconsistent in their responses to their child’s emotional needs are found to foster poor empathy in their child. Some parents tend to blow hot or blow cold according to their moods. At times they reject or withdraw from their child’s need s while at other times they show love and care. This can often confuse the child. These patterns are often common in families where one parent is mentally unstable or is a drug abuser ( including alcohol)

Children that grow up in emotionally, sexually, physically or verbally abusive situations that are constant and severe have been found to grow up a lot of ambiguity about their own feelings. They are also found to have difficulty in recognizing, acknowledging and responding to others need for empathy. These children grow up into adults who are not in touch with their own feelings or who are completely numb to any kind of emotion. They often lack what society calls as a ‘conscience’. They often don’t have the ability to feel repentance or remorse or guilt for their actions and are often incapable of having deep meaningful relationships. They are not in touch with their own feelings and are not likely to have a conscience. They are known as psychopaths and most often child molesters, people who kill or torture for pleasure and serial rapists would fall into this category. One thing which could easily cause a person to lose touch with his own feelings and to lose his sense natural sense of conscience is an extremely painful childhood and adolescence. Such people have experienced so much pain that they shut themselves from it. This pain may have come from physical, sexual or emotional abuse. The end result though is similar. They do not experience their own pain, so they have no compassion for the pain of another. Nor do they have any empathy

•  The kind of example that parents set in terms of modeling empathetic and caring behavior towards children and other adults as well as towards each other has also been found to be strongly related to children's development of pro-social attitudes and behavior. Parents using bad language at each other in the presence of their children or discriminating people on the basis of color, caste, religion, or social class in the presence of children can create deep impression in their minds about who they should show empathy to and who they shouldn’t. Parents can begin to develop empathy in children by encouraging them to give away old clothes and toys to needy, poor or orphaned children, by taking them to places that shelter the less privileged and by allowing them to interact with different kinds of children in the neighborhood. The way parents deal with the old, the sick and the weak tells children lot about how they should so the same. Specific findings talk about how children that grow up in homes where fathers beat mothers are found to lack empathy because they often have been forced to suppress how they felt about what was happening at home. They are first unable to recognize their own feelings and so go onto be unable to recognize or empathize with anyone else’s either

•  Parents who tell their children that empathy is a positive attribute and not a sign of weakness have been found to foster greater empathy in their children. When children are told that their empathetic response shows that they are ‘smart’, ‘kind’, ‘good’, loving’, its highly likely that they would want to increase these empathetic behaviors because they love hearing good things about themselves! So when a mother say ‘That was such a nice thing you did by sharing your meal with Rahul’, that tells the child that sharing in a positive attribute. Children by the age of four or five are perfectly capable to understand this feedback that you give them and believe in these statements that you make.